Campus Reform
Sept 8, 2017
Harvard University students braved a light drizzle Wednesday night to protest a speech by Charles Murray, dubbing the conservative intellectual a “white nationalist.”
Murray is best-known for his 1994 book, The Bell Curve, in which he and co-author Richard Herrnstein argue that hereditary factors, in addition to environmental ones, influence an individual’s intelligence.
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Murray had been invited by the Harvard College Open Campus Initiative (HCOCI)—known as the “free speech club” on campus—which invited him to talk about his most recent book, By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, but the announcement sparked outrage among the student body, according to The Harvard Crimson.
“Inviting [Dr. Murray] to campus in an uncritical and stubbornly evasive way is deeply harmful, and giving him an unchecked platform to spread white nationalism is antithetical to a true commitment to free speech,” said Nicholas Whittaker, a junior at the school. “We ask any interested to join us to assert our dissatisfaction with Murray and HCOCI.”
Outside of the venue, protesters gathered and chanted, “Don’t give into racist fear/everyone is welcome here!”
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Whittaker began by welcoming everyone who showed up to the protest—“whether you are here because you have personally been told by Charles Murray that you are not as smart as your white, male classmates, or you’re here because you’re an incredible ally”—before going on to quip that Murray is “a pretty intersectional white nationalist.”
“He doesn’t just hate—or believe in the inferiority of—people of color and the working class; he also thinks that women are just generally less intelligent, less morally relevant, than…